Last night my kid had to do a math project calculating how far a sloth moved per second. It’s 1.2 inches, in case you were curious. After arriving at that number, he was supposed to measure six feet on the floor, and walk that at the same speed as a sloth. I somehow feel like there is an analogy here to my Year of Landscapes.  I feel like I am making all the progress of a sloth.

I can see so clearly what it is that I want to do, it seems like it ought to happen more quickly. Instantly, really, if you want to know the truth. It’s easy to see that Patience was never a virtue I possessed. At least I have matured enough that I don’t have a fair cussing fit whenever something doesn’t turn out perfectly on the first try, and fling paint and brushes across the room.

And finally…because I felt like I hadn’t painted anyone with really big hair in way too long.

Visits from the in-laws sort of sap my will to live, let alone my will to paint. After starring in a performance art piece for them for a few days, I  just have nothing left. David Blaine must feel the same way after spending a week in a plexi-glass box suspended over a Vegas sidewalk.

I have been seeing pictures of Gillian Anderson playing Miss Havisham in the new BBC production of Great Expectations. She looks so fragile, as thought she might crumble to dust at any moment. I decided to try and capture her haunted look in a painting.

I also managed a landscape this week. Nicola aka PointyPix has been painting wonderful tiny canvases of sparkly lights shining in the rain. I was driving in a fair downpour a few days ago and started thinking about her idea of painting rain-streaked images. This is my impression of buildings seen through the rain. Or maybe it the watery vision of Miss Havisham’s crumbly manor house.

I am posting this on the sly…my in-laws are visiting. That distant banging sound you hear is me hitting my head against any solid surface, hoping to be rendered unconscious. They follow me around watching everything I do, staring like goggle-eyed tourists at one of those sidewalk axe jugglers. This would be understandable if I actually were juggling dangerous objects but I am usually doing something like showing them for the hundredth time how the *&%$##@!*&^@#$ microwave works, or which pitcher has the orange juice. Seriously, they trailed me around the house this afternoon while I ran the Swiffer and then stood and looked in the trash can while I emptied the dust cup. These people have college degrees! I mean, granted, there was a lot less to study back when they got diplomas, but still…standing together watching me empty the vacuum like it was performance art?

Also, what do you feed people who’s combined dietary restrictions are no dairy, salt, gluten, carbs or seeded vegetables? Tofu soup? Oh, and they keep kosher…Unless  they remembered to give the restaurant hostess a Gentile name. Yeah, they believe in an omniscient being, but they think making a dinner reservation under the name “Erikson” will throw him off track and allow them to safely order the mussels marinara.

Speaking of which, restaurant management should hire them to test the skills and patience of any server. If you can wait on these two without going back in the kitchen and adding some “special” ingredients to whatever they finally make up their minds to order, then you are an Olympic caliber service professional, or maybe a hostage negotiator. Either way you deserve a medal.

Before they arrived I did manage to get some art done. This piece is for a fundraiser. It’s supposed to bring to mind an Eastern European village. By the time the in-laws leave Saturday morning, I may have added a tiny woman running away with her hair on fire.

Go see the others at PPF. I think they are fabulous artists, and kinder souls than me.

Is this PPF 43 or have we rolled over?

Last year my goal was to get better at painting faces. I think I did that. This was my first painting of the new year. If 2012 progresses along these lines, I could be happy.

This year I am going to focus on landscapes. At least that’s the goal right now. I could always ditch it in favor of a more realistic goal, like nailing jello to a tree, stacking BB’s, or shoving a wet noodle up a wildcat’s ass.

I’ve decided to do 100 landscapes. Surely after 100, there will be visible improvement. Probably won’t take me more than 50 or so to start painting vaguely recognizable trees and buildings.

Don’t worry. I won’t post them all here, that would be like sitting through the world’s worst vacation slide show. The two that followed this one were pretty dismal, dismal enough to make me wonder if I shouldn’t stick to painting faces and just add one tenth of degree of difficulty, like maybe this year they will all have shoulders. Next year I could work my up to visible elbows…

No one got initiated into the Order of the Orange Cloud, so that’s a plus. I missed the Paint Party something fierce. The ship was magnificent, our stateroom was beautiful, I am an ungrateful hussy. That’s probably what should be engraved on my tombstone.

On the third day the husband went diving, so the boy and I hung out on the ship while it was docked. I was ravenous at this point, having existed on tonic water and bread sticks since we got on the boat. As soon as Captain Nutrition left for the dive boat, we hustled to the ship’s casual restaurant and ordered a pizza.

We were chowing down, enjoying our lunch when a total stranger stopped by our table and stood there with his hands on his hips, shaking his head, as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He was deeply, deeply tanned with wiry gray hair, wearing a loud Hawaiian print shirt, khaki shorts and a Panama hat. He said, “All this beautiful sunshine and wonderful food, and you two are sitting inside eating pizza?” I refrained from smashing him over the head with a chair, and gave him what the husband refers to as the Laser Death Stare. He wisely hustled on out to the Steel Drum Happy Hour the Riviera deck. My  child rolled his eyes and said, “Dude needs to get back to work on his skin cancer and leave us alone.” Ahh, that precious apple didn’t fall far from the tree, did it? I just welled up with pride.

So here she is…the last portrait of the ABC series.

Zephyrine

Let’s lift a glass of our sparkling beverage of choice and have a little toast.

I hope you all had wonderful holidays, and that 2012 brings you much inspiration and happiness.

Thank you Kristen and Eva, you have helped make this year something special for us all!

Here’s to 52 more Paint Party Fridays!

(apologies to whoever sang the original, non-chunky version)

I am getting ready to go on vacation. Yay! Isn’t that nice? Well, it would be, except that this vacation is a cruise. I get seasick, violently, spewingly seasick. Doesn’t matter if it’s a ocean liner, a ferry, or an inflatable raft, once I am in water deep enough to produce any waves at all, my complexion will turn a shade of green only seen in the Wizard of Oz, and anything I have even thought of eating is coming back up. If you find yourself on a boat with me, stay upwind and wear washable fabrics. Probably best to stay on the opposite side, I have been known to violate all laws of physics and aerodynamics.

The husband doesn’t seem to get that the operative half of the word seasick is SEA. He assures me that this time will be different because this time we have a BALCONY! Awesome! I can order room service, hum the food straight over the rail and save the effort of throwing it up manually. The bright side of this is that I come home from any boat related outing thinner than when I left. It’s especially annoying since he will be bouncing all over the boat wearing a grin it would take a bullet to remove.

The hubs seems to think this is all a matter of attitude, if I am convinced that I will not be sick, then I won’t. He also repeatedly shoves things like Altoids and ginger ale in my face. This is in no way helpful. Neither are any over the counter or prescription remedies. I have tried them all. Once when I was still trying to be the loyal girlfriend and was chumming the waters off the side of a dive boat, the captain looked at my pitifulness and said, “I know a sure fire cure for seasickness.” ‘What is it?” I croaked between dry heaves. He said “Sit under an oak tree.”

If you are anywhere in the Caribbean next week and see a woman who looks like this, duck behind something waterproof and point me to the nearest oak tree. Next week’s painting may be sort of a chunky Jackson Pollack homage from the Lido Deck

If you are here from the Paint Party, thanks for stopping by, and if you aren’t then by all means, go have a look.

Remember last week when I was all smug about having my shopping done, and being able to sit at home and paint while the rest of the world went crazy trying to get ready for the holidays? Ah, those were good times. Too bad it couldn’t last.

I can’t even honestly say what I have done the past week, except that very little of it has involved paint. Seriously, the other times I have had this little to show for myself involved heavy alcohol consumption. Matter of fact, heavy drinking is looking good right now. It’s been a week of unexpected projects, unexpected basketball tournaments, and unexpected guests. And one of the unexpected guests changing her baby’s diaper on my suede sofa. That was a What the hell, Hooker? moment right there.

As proof that art can happen any damn where, this was painted sitting on a pile of wrestling mats at my son’s basketball practice. I was going to add curtains, but after I nearly took a bad pass to the bean, my hands got a little shaky.

 Hope all you Paint Partiers have had more luck getting paint on paper than I have this week.

Hope everyone is enjoying this brief period of calm before total holiday chaos sets in. I finished all my gift shopping, so I have spent my spare time painting instead of doing hand to hand retail combat. Almost to the end of the alphabetical portraits…

This is Yvonne, who stood 5 feet 7 inches by the time she was 12 years old. The farmer who owned the dairy down the road from her parents thought she’d make a fantastic wife for his son, and produce a dynasty of strapping future farmhands.

Yvonne’s mother disagreed, and scraped together enough cash to send her to secretarial school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. On the day she was to go downtown and pay her tuition, Yvonne used the money to buy herself a one way ticket to New York City and a new dress and hat to wear to an open call audition for Florenz Ziegfeld. She went on to star in several lavish productions before retiring with her non-farming lover to the south of France. Some credit her with inventing the either the Mimosa, or the flip-flop.

The neighbor boy from the dairy farm married a local girl with short legs and no flair for the dramatic. They had five short daughters who were allergic to cows and hay.

I should probably be posting a painting of a turkey, or a lovely golden brown pie, at the very least some seasonal foliage. Eh, I was never one to go along with the cool kids.

But I figure if you are here in the States, probably you are more than a little bit over the whole monument to over-consumption and unachievable family harmony that is Thanksgiving. Either that, or you have been out since midnight Thursday engaging in full contact extreme shopping in order to try and get your hands on a 48 inch flat screen tv for eleven dollars.

Personally I like to get up early on the Friday after Thanksgiving and watch Scrooged or Mystery Science Theater while eating leftover pumpkin pie for breakfast and squirting canned whipped cream straight into my mouth. Go with whatever tradition works for you, I say.

This is Rhyssa. When she’s feeling a bit pale and vaporous she knows it’s time to yank out a big pink hat and give nature the little boost it needs to make her attractive. She also knows it’s not the time to stand next to the vivacious, dark-haired girls, unless you fancy being described as “delicate”. Sure, delicate is nice if you are a pastry or a piece of Louis XIV cabinetry, but if you are a girl looking for a torrid love affair, not the adjective you are going for.

This year I am especially thankful for my artistic friends, and the inspiration I have gotten from you all.

Can’t believe how close we are to the end of the year. Only three letters left in my ABC portraits. I am already wondering what I should paint for my next series. For now, on to X.

Xaviera – captured in an unguarded moment at a New Year’s party, 1933,

just before she accepted the proposal of the wealthy young man her parents had been strongly suggesting she marry.

She jilted him days before the wedding to elope with a painter she met in Madrid.

Hope everyone has a lovely Paint Party, and and equally lovely Thanksgiving!